Urban mobility recognised as a key driver for achieving climate targets at TRA 2024

The largest research and technology conference on transport and mobility in Europe – the Transport Research Arena (TRA) – took place from 15 to 18 April 2024. Researchers, industry representatives, policymakers, and decision makers from around the world gathered in Dublin, Ireland, to discuss how to work together to achieve an accessible, efficient, safe and sustainable transport and mobility system.

The conference gathered stakeholders from all transport networks (road, rail, waterborne and aviation). Four themes connected the daily conference sessions, workshops, and discussions, with one overarching objective highlighted each day: 

1. Safe and inclusive transport
2. Sustainable mobility of people and goods
3. Efficient and resilient systems
4. Collaborative digitalisation

Within these themes, there were many in-depth and insightful spotlights on sustainable urban mobility. Stakeholders and experts discussed the challenges and solutions for a range of urban mobility topics, such as Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM), public transport, active travel, road safety, urban logistics and Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). This article highlights a few of the many discussions and takeaways that focused on urban mobility across the four conference days.

On day one of TRA2024, a ‘special session’ took place on “Sustainable Urban Mobility Solutions for Climate-neutral and Smart Cities”. CIVITAS Initiative Coordinator, Andreas Piller, participated as a panellist, and highlighted the systemic change needed to achieve climate-neutral cities. Piller emphasised the importance of knowledge exchange among cities to build capacity and accelerate urban transport decarbonisation. Piller, along with other panellists – Clemence Cavoli (UCL), Sergio Fernandez Balaguer (EMT Madrid), Octavia Anamaria Stephan and Salima Abu Jeriban (CINEA) – also highlighted the importance of stakeholder engagement and consultation when planning and implementing changes.

Another interesting session, focusing on “People-Centred & Inclusive Mobility”, saw Lindsey Mancini, Senior Director of Events and Academy Services, from UITP speaking on the importance of inclusivity while transitioning toward a sustainable mobility system. The session focused on the importance of adopting a user-centric approach to improve public transport services. In the engaging discussion, Mancini highlighted that “a workforce that is representative of the travelling public ensures that services are more inclusive for passengers”.

The TRA also provided a platform for stakeholders to discuss SUMP progress across Europe, including a ‘technical session’ on “SUMPs and Policy Design”. Stella Aaltonen, City of Turku, took part in the 'poster session' “Urban, Regional & Rural Transport” where she presented the findings of the paper “Soft Measures Speeding up the Change – Showcases from the City of Turku, Finland”. In this presentation, she shared best practices that have been implemented in the city while highlighting the important synergies between reducing emissions from transport and utilising data-driven services.

Active modes featured prominently across the TRA programme. A number of discussions were specifically centred around the role of cycling in achieving sustainable mobility in cities, as well as the use of cargo bikes and cyclable streets, and the effect gender has on active mobility. One example was the ‘technical session’ titled “Transport Behaviour” which took place on day one of the conference. During this session, Annika Kunnasvirta from the Turku University of Applied Sciences presented the paper “Promoting Cycling Skills of Schoolchildren – Participatory Impact Evaluation Methods as Nudges for Active Mobility”. Knnuasvirta shared findings from the paper including strategies to promote cycling from a young age.

Another session titled “Active Travel”, included a presentation from Aleksander Buczynski, Policy Officer at the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF). Buczynski presented their use of OpenStreetMap in estimating cycling infrastructure investment needs across Europe. He highlighted the current gap between the demand for data on cycling infrastructure and the official sources that can provide this type of information. ECF are addressing this gap by extracting data from OpenStreetMap and have collated a wealth of useful, disaggregated information such as the ratio of segregated cycling infrastructure to main roads.

With over 4,000 participants from 50 countries, and over 200 'strategic', 'poster', 'demo' and 'host' sessions, the action-packed conference certainly delivered on its overarching theme and ambition to “Advance Sustainable and Inclusive Mobility”.

For more information:

CIVITAS discusses sustainable urban mobility solutions at TRA | CIVITAS

TRA 2024 | Transport Research Arena | RDS, Dublin (traconference.eu)

Advancing Sustainable Mobility: Highlights from SCALE-UP’s Participation at the TRA in Dublin — SCALE-UP (scale-up-project.eu)